1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to healthcare-related information sharing, and particularly to associating individuals having medical conditions with needed health care resources.
2. Description of the Related Art
Health-related social service programs (SSs) are an integral part of the American healthcare system. These programs seek to assist patients in managing their medical conditions and improving their quality of life. A few examples of these social services include In-Home Support Services (IHSS), Healthcare Insurance Premium Payment Plan, Transportation Programs, and Financial Assistance Programs (e.g. Supplemental Security Income (SSI)). While social services are in principle helpful, they tend not to be leveraged optimally because of a number of challenges associated with their design, implementation, promotion and delivery. One of the leading reasons for the under-utilization of social services is the fact that patients have limited knowledge of these programs, their associated time constraints, eligibility requirements, etc. Reference may be had to FIG. 1. This problem of not enabling patients to leverage such social service programs results in great discomfort during the recovery process.
In FIG. 1, a person is shown pondering over diagnosis of a chronic health condition, in this example, leukemia. Questions such as what social services are available for the condition, how to afford health care, how to obtain supplemental income and others are clearly relevant to persons who are diagnosed with any chronic medical conditions such as cancer, etc.
Therefore, what is needed is a robust, automated system for providing health care information, social services information, and assistance with automated access to patients.